Various apparatuses and methods have been developed to produce fuel cells from components developed in web or roll form. Conventional assembling approaches typically involve cutting several of the input web components to form stacks of such material in batch operations. The singulated materials are then manipulated using various mechanical and vacuum means to properly position the singulated materials during fuel cell assembly.
Although many of these processes can be automated, such approaches typically involve numerous handling, registration, and alignment steps performed by complex, time consuming, and typically expensive automation equipment. The number and complexity of processing steps associated with conventional fuel cell manufacturing approaches typically reduces product throughput, which negatively affects the productivity of an automated fuel cell assembly line. Moreover, many conventional fuel cell fabrication apparatuses and methods are not well suited for a high degree of automation, particularly such apparatus and processes which have tight positional tolerance requirements.
There is a need for improved fuel cell manufacturing apparatuses, methodologies, and fuel cell assemblies produced from such apparatuses and methodologies. There is a further need for such apparatuses, methodologies, and fuel cell assemblies that can be implemented in an automated assembly environment, such as in an automated fuel cell assembly plant. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and addresses other deficiencies in prior approaches.